Heroes
by curlybean
Summary: This is the story of September 11, 2001, as seen by Dean Winchester. Everyone talks about where they were when it happened. When the World Trade Center was hit. When the Pentagon was hit. When our planes were taken over by terrorists. I remember exactly where I was. I remember exactly what I was doing.


Heroes

* * *

Warning: This story revolves around the events of September 11, 2001. Please take caution if these events are still too overwhelming and painful for you.

* * *

Dean was twenty-two years old on the day that changed the world. But, he was an old twenty-two. His life hadn't been filled with family vacations, high school football games, movie dates, backyard barbecues, or summer camps. No, his life had been nothing but a long trail of werewolf hunts, salt and burns, greasy diner food, and lonely motel rooms.

But he loved his life. At least, he did until his little brother walked out on him. Now, his life sucked. Not only was Sammy gone, but so was his dad. He was alone and he hated it.

Dean didn't really know who he was without his brother or his dad. Well, he knew he was still Dean Winchester, but he really didn't know who Dean Winchester was without his family. The Dean he knew….the Dean he loved being… was the Dean that took care of his family. The Dean that made sure his little brother had everything he needed. The Dean that took care of his dad when the man stumbled through the door, either injured from a hunt or in a drunken stupor.

_That_ Dean was familiar to him. _That_ Dean he understood. He knew _that_ Dean. He knew all of his deepest, darkest desires. All of his needs. All of his fears and worries.

But the Dean he was now was a complete stranger. He was less, if that made sense. Less of a brother? Less of a son? Less of a person, truth be told. Suddenly, he didn't know what to do. Of course, he still hunted, but his heart wasn't in it the way it should have been. He went through the motions, but he didn't care if he did everything right. He didn't care if he succeeded or failed. If he lived or died.

Without Sammy, his life was meaningless. Without his family, his life was worthless…pointless….useless.

That wasn't to say that Dean wanted to die, because he didn't. He wanted desperately to live, just not the life that he was living. He wanted more than the greasy diners and the crappy motel rooms. He wanted more than driving down lonely highways, listening to the same sad songs over and over again, wishing that Sam was sitting in the back seat, complaining about being pulled out of yet another school. He even missed the constant arguing between his brother and dad. Because even with their arguing, they were there and he wasn't alone.

Dean hated being alone.

He hated being alone more than he hated the evil monsters that filled the world. He hated being alone more than he hated flying or snakes or bullies or fathers that expected too much from their children.

Yet, here he was... alone again. The day after Sam left for Stanford, John up and left, too. In the beginning, he wouldn't be gone for long. Just a day or two here and there. But, eventually those one to two days turned into one to two weeks. John would show up wherever Dean was just long enough for Dean to patch him up and to catch a few hours of sleep. Then he would be gone again before Dean even had a chance to really talk to him. He'd sometimes send Dean out on a hunt before he left. And sometimes he'd leave in the middle of the night while Dean was asleep.

Dean hated that the most. He'd wake up, remembering that his dad had come home, but then seconds later, the silence of the motel room told him that his dad had left. Again. And Dean's heart seemed to break all over again. _He wondered how many times his heart could break before he couldn't piece it back together._

* * *

Dean had been to New York once before. He had mixed emotions when he thought about that week because on one hand it had been a great time with his dad and brother. They had spent a whole day riding the subways and seeing the sights. And they'd eaten even more pizza than Dean thought was humanly possible.

On the other hand, the trip to New York hadn't ended well. For Dean, at least.

Once his dad and brother were asleep, Dean had snuck out of the motel room. There was no way he was going to be so close to the infamous CBGBs and not go, so he'd gone. He'd gotten really drunk for the first time that night and he'd been completely humiliated when his dad had shown up at the club, yelling his name loud enough to bring the club to a complete stop. Dean knew that people were looking at him. Most of them were laughing. Some of them were embarrassed for him. All of them were thankful that they weren't the Dean Winchester the man was calling for. The rest of the night was a painful memory for Dean. To say that John Winchester was disappointed in his son was the understatement of the century.

Now, years later, Dean found himself in New York again. John had left a message for him to make his way there as soon as he could, so he'd climbed into the Impala and made the thousand mile drive in a little less than thirteen hours. They were supposed to meet up somewhere just outside of Manhattan, but when he was just a few hours away, John called to tell him that he would be a day or two late.

Having an unexpected few days off, Dean decided to live it up a little and explore the city. He was surprised to find his spirits lifted by the vibrancy of the city and he took advantage of his sudden buoyancy. For a Tuesday morning, it was surprisingly busy and he supposed that that was probably a normal part of life in the city. Everywhere he looked, people were hustling to get where they were going. Men and women in power suits, clutching briefcases. People standing on the sidewalk curbs, hailing cabs and talking on phones. Moms pushing strollers. Dad's carrying children on their shoulders. Tourists looking at maps and gesturing at buildings.

Dean didn't really have any particular destination in mind, so he just started walking. He hadn't been able to really sleep the night before, so he had left the motel room by seven o'clock and made his way downtown. After a confusing stint on the subway, he finally emerged onto a street that was shadowed by the looming Twin Towers.

Dean knew about the World Trade Center, mostly because Sam had always been in awe of the place. He'd never really had a desire to see it for himself, but looking at it now, he couldn't deny the majesty of the two tallest buildings. The sheer magnitude of the Twin Towers was almost overwhelming to a kid who had spent most of his life on the road, moving from one Podunk town to another.

Seeing a small café nearby, Dean bought himself a piece of pie and a cup of coffee, and then settled down to watch the city's inhabitants. He wouldn't ever admit to the sentimentality of it, but he loved watching people, trying to figure out what their story was. The kid riding his bike while wearing a suit was undoubtedly an intern somewhere. The man carrying the briefcase and talking angrily into his phone was probably arguing with his wife. The older woman sitting all by herself at a table next to him was probably thinking about times past. Dean couldn't help but notice that she looked sad and he threw her one of his most charming smiles. His insides warmed when she sent him a tentative smile back.

As he watched the people around him, imagining their stories, he wondered what people thought of _him _when they saw him. Did they think that he was some hooligan (Bobby's word, not his) that had nothing better to do on a Tuesday morning than eat pie and drink coffee? Did they think that he was a good-for-nothing loser that couldn't hold down a job? Or did they think that he could possibly be more than that? Maybe a freelance reporter looking for his next story. Or an undercover cop looking to make a bust. Maybe they would give him the benefit of the doubt and not think that his life was worthless or pointless or useless. And maybe, just maybe, he should give himself that same benefit of doubt.

Dean knew deep down that what he did actually did matter. He knew that he saved lives and made the world a better place for everyone. Hell, he even knew, somewhere deep down inside of him, that he was a hero. He had a hard time admitting that to himself, but he was pretty sure that the people he'd saved in the past saw him that way. And that alone was enough to keep him going most mornings. Hunters rarely got the recognition they deserved for doing the things they did and they really didn't expect it.

Dean had always imagined hunters as being real-life superheroes. When they were little, he would tell Sam over and over again that their dad was a hero. Even after Sam figured out what John was doing every time he left them, Dean still told him that their dad was a hero.

And both Sam and Dean loved heroes. When they were younger, they often played as superheroes. Dean, of course, was usually Batman, especially after the time he'd let Sam be Batman and the kid thought that he could jump off the roof of the shed. That had led to Sam breaking his arm and Dean having to face a pissed off John Winchester when he returned home to find his youngest son in a cast. Dean shuddered at that particular memory.

Sam also went through a phase where he always wanted to play firefighters, but Dean refused. Not that he didn't think firefighters were heroes, because he did, but because when he thought of firefighters, he thought of the ones that were there _that _night. The ones that weren't able to save his mom. Now as an adult, and knowing what he knew about the fire that had killed her, he knew that they had done everything they could to save her. He knew that there had been no way to save her. He _knew_ that now.

But when he was four, he didn't know. When he was four, he thought that firefighters could do anything... could save anyone. When one of them showed up while the three of them were sitting on the hood of the Impala, Dean had expected him to tell them that his mom was okay. That they had saved her. But, he didn't. Instead, Dean listened as the man told his dad that they had done everything they could to get her out of the fire, but they just couldn't save her. In that moment, Dean decided that firefighters really weren't heroes. And nothing his dad could say would change his mind.

As he nursed his cup of coffee and ate his last bite of pie, Dean suddenly noticed a change in the energy of the people around him. At the same time, he heard the loudest, strangest noise and felt a strange vibration shoot through him. Standing up so quickly that the chair he was sitting in turned over, Dean made his way to the door.

Once he was on the street, he noticed that people were frantically scurrying down the street, all in the same direction, all continuously throwing glances backwards. Dean turned his head, looking in the direction they were all looking, and was immediately shocked to see flames erupting from one of the Twin Towers.

Listening to the cacophony around him, he started making out bits and pieces of what people were saying. A plane had flown into the north tower. As he thought about the ramifications of that happening, Dean also started thinking about how that could have happened in the first place. _How could a plane get so off course as to fly low enough to collide with a building? _It didn't make any sense to him.

Standing off to the side, he watched as people fled down the sidewalk. He could see the looks of complete sadness and fear that covered most of their faces as they ran by. Once or twice, he stepped out to help someone who stumbled or fell in their attempts to get out of the area. At one point, he looked over to see the older woman he'd been sitting by in the café standing next to him. He didn't move away as she grabbed his arm and held on.

He had no idea how long he'd stayed like that, watching as the world they knew fell apart, second by second. There was so much chaos and fear around him and he had no idea what to do. Just as he thought that he should probably think about getting out of the area himself, though, he heard someone yell that there was another plane.

Dean looked up and immediately noticed the plane that was flying too low. The second he saw that plane- even before it flew into the south tower- he knew that they were under attack. There was no other explanation. The United States of America was under attack.

* * *

John sat in his motel room, watching in horror as the events of the attack in New York were playing out on his television. He had been trying to call Dean ever since he'd woken up and turned on the television, but the calls weren't going through.

In the beginning, he tried to reassure himself that Dean was still in bed, taking advantage of the unexpected time off to get some much needed rest. But, he knew his son. Dean rarely slept in past eight o'clock and it was now after ten.

Knowing that Sam was safe in California did very little to calm his nerves. He dreaded the thought of having to call his youngest to let him know that his brother was in New York. Although things were awkward and weird between the two brothers at the moment, he knew that Sam would be devastated to know that Dean was anywhere near what was looking to be a full-scale terrorist attack.

After at least the twentieth call that never actually made it through to Dean's phone, John was surprised to hear it actually ringing. He held his breath as ring after ring went unanswered and let it out in a deep rush when he heard Dean's voice telling him to leave a message.

"Damn it, Dean! Answer your phone!" Once he realized how stupid it was to say that in a voicemail, he tried again. "Listen, Dean….. don't do anything stupid, okay? Get yourself somewhere safe and stay there. I'm on my way and I should be there no later than four or five in the morning. Let me know where you are, okay?"

Before he could say anything else, the call disconnected, leaving John to stare at his phone anxiously. If he knew his son- and he was pretty sure he did- Dean would be smack in the middle of whatever was going on. The boy had absolutely no sense of self-preservation, especially when it came to saving people and hunting things.

With a quick prayer to a God he desperately wanted to believe in, John swept out of the motel room and headed to New York to find his son.

* * *

Dean felt as scared and overwhelmed as everyone else in the city. They all seemed to be transfixed by the sight of the Twin Towers burning. Dean wasn't sure, but he remembered reading something about the World Trade Center being structurally able to withstand almost anything. Of course, the idea of a plane flying into one of them was hard to comprehend and he doubted that the engineers could have ever predicted the true outcome of that happening.

While everyone else seemed to be making their way away from the towers, Dean found himself walking towards them. He hadn't gotten very far, though, when the unbelievable happened. His eyes were on the towers the exact second the south tower started to collapse and suddenly everything around him disappeared. His attention was solely on the collapse of the tower and what that meant to the people that were still trapped inside. He had watched from afar as firefighter after firefighter made their way into the towers, hoping to be able to knock down the fire and save those still inside.

Suddenly, everything came back in to motion for him. Suddenly, there was mad rush from those around him to get away. Suddenly, there was a wall of smoke and ash and debris heading towards them and people were trying desperately to escape. Dean found himself stupidly surging forward while everyone else was running the other way. He had no idea what he was doing, but he knew that there were people up ahead that would be needing help.

As he moved along, he stopped to help people, picking them up off the ground when they'd fallen or shaking them out of the obvious state of shock they were in. When the air got too thick, he took off his flannel shirt and wrapped it around the lower half of his face. His eyes were burning and his lungs felt like they were on fire, but he kept moving forward.

Eventually, he started to see people with more grievous injuries. Gashes and abrasions, lacerations and extremity injuries. He figured that most of these were probably from the mad rush to get away, figuring that anyone that had been caught in the actual collapse would be even more grievously injured.

More and more often, he was stopped by someone in uniform, telling him to turn around and leave. He knew they were just doing their jobs, but he couldn't just do that. _He had to help. _The people in those towers were someone's husband, someone's wife, someone's father or mother. They were someone's best friend, someone's grandchild. Someone's sister. _Or someone's brother._

That train of thought led him to think of Sam and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to hear his brother's voice. He needed to make sure that Sam was okay, that whatever was happening in New York wasn't also happening in Palo Alto, California. He grabbed his phone from out of his pocket, but before he could even open it, the north tower collapsed.

And for the first time since it started, Dean gave into the tears that burned his eyes.

* * *

He never made it close enough to the collapse site to be of any help in the first hours of the recovery operation. But eventually, Dean worked his way onto the site, passing himself off as an off-duty cop. He joined in the search and rescue operation, digging through the rubble of the towers' collapse, hoping to find someone alive.

And he dug for hours. He dug until his hands were bleeding and he felt like he might collapse himself. He dug until someone forcefully grabbed his arm and made him stop digging and take a break.

"C'mon, son…. you need to rest. You're barely able to keep yourself upright."

Dean eyed the man closely before pulling his arm away. "No, man… I'm okay. I'm good." He turned back to start digging again, but stumbled forward when a wave of dizziness washed over him. He would have fallen flat on his face if the man hadn't grabbed him from behind.

"You have to stop. You're not going to do anyone any good at all if you fall on your face."

Dean allowed himself to be led over to a small first aid station that had been set up. He allowed himself to be lowered into a chair and allowed someone to clean and bandage his mangled hands. Once that was done and he had downed two full bottles of water, Dean stood up to get back to it.

The same man that made him take a break suddenly appeared at his side. "Whoa! You're not going back in yet. You still look like you're one breath away from passing out."

"I'm fine. I can handle it."

"I'm sure you can, son, but that's not the point. This is going to take a while. We're all going to have to take breaks to take care of ourselves, if we want to see this through. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," Dean answered quietly.

"My name is Nate Goodwin," the man said as he stuck his hand out towards Dean.

"Dean… Winchester," Dean answered.

"It's nice to meet you, Dean Winchester. Where are you from?"

"Um…. Kansas."

"You sure did get here fast, Dean."

"I was, uh… I was already here. I'm supposed to be meeting up with my dad for a job." Dean realized that he was offering up too much information, so he shut up.

"What kind of job? I thought you were a cop."

"Oh…. I am. I'm just helping out my dad with a job. He's a mechanic. Works on classic cars."

"Have you talked to him yet? Does he know that you're okay?"

Dean's face suddenly paled underneath the dust and ash that covered it. "Damn! He's probably going crazy by now." He pulled out his phone, only to find that the battery was dead.

"Here you go. You can use mine, Dean. It'll be a miracle if you can get through, though."

Dean quickly dialed his dad's number, only to be sent to his voicemail. After leaving a brief message telling him that he was okay and that he'd call him later, Dean ended the call. "Do you mind if I make another call? I'll make it quick, I promise."

"Sure. Go ahead."

Dean quickly dialed Sam's number, but the call didn't go through. Ending the call, he tried again, praying that it would work. He was caught off guard when Sam answered on the first ring.

"Dean? Is that you? Are you okay?"

"I'm okay, Sammy. You?"

"I've been going crazy, Dean. Dad called and told me that you were in New York and that you weren't answering your phone. Do you have any idea what I thought? I thought you were dead, Dean. I thought that you had probably gone and done something stupid, something heroic, and gotten yourself killed."

"I'm fine, dude," Dean said with a very unconvincing laugh. "My battery died, so I couldn't call. How did you know it was me? I'm calling on someone else's phone."

"I don't know. I just knew. Where are you?"

"I'm here, Sam. Ground Zero, man."

"Dean…."

"It's awful, Sam. I had to help."

"I know, Dean. I know."

They talked for a few more minutes. Sam warned Dean that their dad was going to be pissed when he learned that Dean's phone battery was dead. He warned Dean than John was nearly out of his mind with worry.

Finally, Dean felt like he should give the man his phone back. "Call Dad and tell him where I am, okay? Tell him I'll meet up with him tomorrow at the motel. He knows which one."

"Stay safe, Dean. And take care of yourself."

"You, too, Sammy."

Dean hung up the phone, feeling a sense of sadness wash over him at the loss of connection with his brother. After thanking the man for the use of his phone, he polished off another bottle of water. "What do you say we get back to it, Nate?"

Nate finished the bottle of water he was drinking and led Dean back to the site they were searching. Back to the grim work of looking for survivors.

* * *

It was almost three full days before Dean and John finally met back up. John wasn't too happy with the idea of having to wait to see Dean, but he understood his son's need to be of help.

In those three days, Dean continued to help with the search and rescue operation. It was gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, exhausting work, but no one was willing to stop. Dean hadn't ever met more honorable men and women than those he worked with those three days. Most of them had lost friends and co-workers in the tragedy. Some had lost family. All had lost their sense of security and trust in the world.

Dean suddenly realized that he was surrounded by heroes. Firefighters… policemen… paramedics… …nurses… doctors… courageous everyday people that were just there to help. People that just wanted to do good in a world that suddenly seemed filled with evil.

People like his father and his brother. People like him.

Heroes.

* * *

Author's note: I wrote this on September 11 after watching story after story of the heroic people of that day. People who walked into the Twin Towers as everyone else rushed out. People who faced terrorists to save others, even when they knew they couldn't save themselves. People who sacrificed _everything_ in the hope of rescuing someone else. So many lives were lost that day, but so many heroes were also born.

Everyone talks about where they were when it happened. When the World Trade Center was hit. When the Pentagon was hit. When our planes were taken over by terrorists. I remember exactly where I was. I remember exactly what I was doing.

Hearing people's stories of what they were doing that day and how they reacted made me think of how the Winchesters would have experienced that. This is just my little interpretation of that. I mean no disrespect to anyone. In fact, I really hope that this little story shows my deepest respect and gratitude to the men and women in this world who step up when tragedy occurs. I truly believe that there is a hero in all of us, waiting to be born.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear your thoughts.


End file.
